Australia Day “Dumb Things” Prayer of Confession, Epiphany 4A

Putting liturgy together for me is a profoundly spiritual creative process of deeply searching the bible, my own life and soul as well as my as well as my social media newsfeed.

Searching Myself…. I may have sworn at an umpire on a cricket field yesterday… we were both to blame…‘Sorry I am just an argumentative bastard’ he said to me… and I was ashamed because he found it in himself to say sorry before me an ordained minister of religion… its an example of personal sin and hypocrisy…

Searching the Bible : for this weeks lectionary Micah 6:8 was a cutting edge prophetic polemic back in its day against the primal cultural meme that the God require human sacrifice. “What does God require, Do Justice, Love Mercy, Walk Humbly with our God”… its a favourite text with the lefty Christian set.

It reminded me of this image that I had seen this week of a church that had the posters of a version of this text on the wall but the summer heat had caused the first one to fall upon the floor. Love Kindness and Walking Humbly seem like pretty easy ideas but so often the ‘Doing justice’ can be hard. What it is and who determines such, can be such a contested and confronting issue. It’s often the one to hit the floor…

Searching my Newsfeed: This theme of justice led me to Donald Trump’s inauguration and first week in office. Such is the white noise his name will not be mentioned again this confession. (Perhaps confessions later on). The other issue of justice closer to home in my newsfeed was Australia Day and the whole #changethedate debate.

Back in November Aussie rock legend Paul Kelly joined hip hop group A.B. Original for triple j’s “Like A Version”, giving the world a fresh take on his ’80s hit Dumb Things and marking the release of A.B. Originals very relevant album, “Reclaim Australia.”

At once ‘Dumb things’ is a song about personal sins, failings and addictions… something Kelly as a rock star is well qualified to sing about. However in his music Kelly has also been an important cultural voice for social sins.

Between the familiar chorus of one of Australia’s most iconic songs, Aboriginal rappers Briggs and Trials raised some seriously contentious public justice issue ‘sins ‘facing our country right now including complacency towards racism, death in custody, Australia’s refugee policy and blackface.

“Reclaim Australia” is the name of the album. Which sounds a lot like conservative Christian Evangelical language, or colonialism, or some far right nationalist groups. Prior to covering Dumb Things the group, along with Dan Sultan performed their single January 26 which directly addresses the problem with celebrating Australia Day on this date.

So what’s your confession, on the week of Australia Day. Maybe its more private or maybe more public but perhaps this mix of images and ideas encourages us to find the connections between both.

We will say the prayer and have a time of silent reflection in which we will hear read the words of the rap and sing the refrain of the song ‘Dumb Things’ together…

Almighty God, We confess that we have sinned against you in thought and word and deed and in what we have left undone.

Yeah, them dumb things
This goin’ out to all my brothers down there in Don Dale
Dealin’ with that disaster that them guards are there and not jail
Thinking we gettin’ our welfare, huh? Thinking we gettin’ our healthcare, huh?
Think about if it was your son, now think about sending some help there, yeah

What’s dumber than that mate? What’s dumber than dressing up blackface?

What’s dumber than doing it knowing it hurts and don’t even work to make that change